It is time for Zorba to start meditating, and it is time for the people who are meditators not to allow themselves to escape from the world... Only in completion is there bliss. Only in completion have you come home.
Osho

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Contemplation, Concentration and Meditation

Contemplation, Concentration and Meditation

Question - Kindly explain Contemplation, Concentration and
Meditation

Osho - ‘Contemplation’ means directed thinking. We all
think; that is not contemplation. That thinking is undirected, vague, leading
nowhere. Really, our thinking is not contemplation, but what Freudians call
association. One thought leads to another without any direction from you. The
thought itself leads to another because of association.

You see a dog crossing the street. The moment you see the dog,
your mind starts thinking about dogs. The dog has led you to this thought, and
then the mind has many associations. When you were a child, you were afraid of a
particular dog. That dog comes to the mind and then the childhood comes to the
mind. Then dogs are forgotten; then just by association you begin to daydream
about your childhood. Then the childhood goes on being connected with other
things, and you move in circles.

Whenever you are at ease, try to go backwards from your thinking
to where the thoughts came from. Go back, retrace the steps. Then you will see
that another thought was there, and that led to this. And they are not logically
connected, because how is a dog on the street connected with your childhood?

There is no logical connection – only association in your mind.
If I was crossing the street, the same dog would not lead me to my childhood, it
would lead to something else. In a third person it would lead to still something
else. Everyone has associated chains in the mind. With any one person some
happening, some accident will lead to the chain. Then the mind begins to
function like a computer. Then one thing leads to another, another leads to
another, and you go on, and the whole day you are doing that.

Write down on a sheet of paper whatsoever comes to your mind,
honestly. You will be just amazed what is happening in your mind. There is no
relation between two thoughts, and you go on doing this type of thinking. You
call this thinking? This is just association of one thought with another, and
they lead themselves... you are led.

Thinking becomes contemplation when it moves not through
association, but is directed. You are working on a particular problem – then you
bracket out all associations. You move on that problem only, you direct your
mind. The mind will try to escape to any bypath, to any side route, to some
association. You cut off all the side routes; on only one road you direct your
mind. A scientist working on a problem is in contemplation. A logician working
on a problem, a mathematician working on a problem is in contemplation. A poet
contemplates a flower. Then the whole world is bracketed out, and only that
flower and the poet remains, and he moves with the flower. Many things from side
routes will attract, but he does not allow his mind to move anywhere. Mind moves
in one line, directed. This is contemplation.

Science is based on contemplation. Any logical thinking is
contemplation: thought is directed, thinking guided. Ordinary thinking is
absurd. Contemplation is logical, rational.
Then there is ‘concentration’.
Concentration is staying at one point. It is not thinking; it is not
contemplation. It is really being at one point, not allowing the mind to move at
all. In ordinary thinking mind moves as a madman. In contemplation the madman is
led, directed; he cannot escape anywhere.

In concentration the mind is not allowed to move. In ordinary
thinking, it is allowed to
move anywhere; in contemplation, it is allowed to
move only somewhere; in concentration, it is not allowed to move, it is only
allowed to be at one point. The whole energy, the whole movement stops, sticks
to one point. Yoga is concerned with concentration, ordinary mind with
undirected thinking, the scientific mind with directed thinking. The yogic mind
has its thinking focused, fixed at one point; no movement is
allowed.

And then there is ’meditation’. In ordinary thinking, mind is
allowed to move anywhere; in
contemplation, it is allowed only in one
direction, all other directions are cut off. In concentration, it is not allowed
to move even in one direction; it is allowed only to concentrate on one point.
And in meditation, mind is not allowed at all. Meditation is no-mind.

These are four stages: ordinary thinking, contemplation,
concentration, meditation.
Meditation means no-mind – not even concentration
is allowed. Mind itself is not allowed to be! That is why meditation cannot be
grasped by mind. Up to concentration mind has a reach, an approach. Mind can
understand concentration, but mind cannot understand meditation. Really, mind is
not allowed at all. In concentration, mind is allowed to be at one point. In
meditation, even that point is taken away. In ordinary thinking, all directions
are open. In contemplation, only one direction is open. In concentration, only
one point is open – no direction. In meditation, even that point is not open:
mind is not allowed to be. Ordinary thinking is the ordinary state of mind, and
meditation is the highest possibility. The lowest one is ordinary thinking,
association, and the highest, the peak, is meditation – no-mind.

And with the second question, it is also asked: CONTEMPLATION
AND CONCENTRATION ARE MENTAL PROCESSES. HOW CAN MENTAL PROCESSES HELP IN
ACHIEVING A STATE OF
NO-MIND?

The question is significant. Mind asks,
how can mind itself go beyond mind? How can any mental process help to achieve
something which is not of the mind? It looks contradictory. How can your mind
try, make an effort to create a state which is not of mind?

Try to understand. When mind is, what is there? A process of
thinking. When there is no-mind, what is there? No process of thinking. If you
go on decreasing your process of thinking, if you go on dissolving your
thinking, by and by, slowly, you are reaching no-mind. Mind means thinking; no
mind means non-thinking. And mind can help. Mind can help in committing suicide.
You can commit suicide; you never ask how a man who is alive can help himself to
be dead. You can help yourself to be dead – everyone is trying to help. You can
help yourself to be dead, and you are alive. Mind can help to be no-mind.

How can mind help? If the process of thinking becomes more and
more dense, then you are proceeding from mind to more mind. If the process of
thinking becomes less dense, is decreased, is slowed down, you are helping
yourself toward no-mind. It depends on you. And mind can be a help, because
really, mind is what you are doing with your consciousness this very moment. If
you leave your consciousness alone, without doing anything with it, it becomes
meditation.

So there are two possibilities: either slowly, gradually you
decrease your mind, by and by. If one percent is decreased, then you have
ninety-nine percent mind and one percent no-mind within you. It is as if you
have removed some furniture from your room – then some space is created there.
Then you remove more furniture, and more space is created there. When you have
removed all the furniture, the whole room becomes space.

Really, space is not created by removing the furniture, the
space was already there. It is only that the space was occupied by the
furniture. When you remove the furniture, no space comes in from outside; the
space was there, occupied by furniture. You have removed the furniture, and the
space is recovered, reclaimed. Deep down mind is space occupied, filled by
thoughts. If you remove some thoughts, space is created – or discovered, or
reclaimed. If you go on removing your thoughts, by and by you go on regaining
your space. This space is meditation.

Slowly it can be done – suddenly also. There is no need to go on
for lives together removing the furniture, because there are problems. When you
start to remove the furniture, one percent space is created and ninety-nine
percent space is occupied. That ninety-nine percent occupied space will not feel
good about the unoccupied space; it will try to fill it. So one goes on slowly
decreasing thoughts and then again creating new thoughts.

In the morning you sit for meditation for some time; you slow
down your process of thought. Then you go to the market, and again there is a
rush of thoughts. The space is filled again. The next day you again do this, and
you go on doing this – throwing it out, and inviting it in again. You can also
throw all the furniture out suddenly. It is your decision. It is difficult
because you have become accustomed to the furniture. You may feel uncomfortable
without the furniture; you will not know what to do with that space. You may
become afraid even to move in that space. You have never moved in such
freedom.

Mind is a conditioning. We have become accustomed to thoughts.
Have you ever observed – or if you have not observed, then observe – that you go
on repeating the same thoughts every day. You are like a gramophone record, and
then too not a fresh, new one – old. You go on and on repeating the same things.
Why? What is the use of it? Only one use, it is just a long habit; you feel you
are doing something.

You are lying on your bed just waiting for sleep to come and the
same things are repeated every day. Why are you doing this? It helps in a way.
Old habits, conditionings, help. A child needs a toy. If the toy is given to
him, he will fall into sleep; then you can take away the toy. But if the toy is
not there, the child cannot fall into sleep. It is a conditioning. The moment
the toy is given to him, it triggers something in his mind. Now he is ready to
fall into sleep. The same is happening with you. The toys may differ. One person
cannot fall into sleep unless he starts chanting, ”Ram, Ram, Ram...” He cannot
fall into sleep! This is a toy. If he chants, ”Ram, Ram, Ram...” the toy is
given to him; he can fall into sleep.

You feel difficulty in falling asleep in a new room. If you are
accustomed to sleeping in particular clothes, then you will need those
particular clothes every day. Psychologists say that if you sleep in a nightgown
and it is not given to you, you will feel difficulty in falling asleep. Why? If
you have never slept naked and you are told to sleep naked, you will not feel at
ease. Why? There is no relationship between nakedness and sleep, but for you
there is a relationship, an old habit. With old habits one feels at ease,
comfortable.

Thinking patterns are also just habits. You feel comfortable –
the same thoughts every day, the same routine. You feel everything is okay. You
have investments in your thoughts – that is the problem. Your furniture is not
just rubbish to be thrown; you have invested many, many things in it. All the
furniture can be thrown immediately: it can be done! There are sudden methods of
which we will speak. Immediately, this very moment,
you can be freed of your
whole mental furniture. But then you will be suddenly vacant, empty, and you
will not know who you are. Now you will not know what to do because for the
first time your old patterns are no more. The shock may be too sudden. You may
even die, or you may go mad.

That is why sudden methods are not used. Unless one is ready,
sudden methods are not used. One may go suddenly mad because one may miss all
the moorings. The past drops immediately, and when past drops immediately you
cannot conceive of the future, because the future was always conceived of in
terms of the past. Only the present remains, and you have never been in the
present. Either you were in the past or in the future. So when you are just in
the present for the first time, you will feel you have gone berserk, mad. That
is why sudden methods are not used unless you are working in a school, unless
you are working with a master in a group, unless you are totally devoted, unless
you have dedicated your whole life for meditation.

So gradual methods are good. They take a long time, but by and
by you become accustomed to space. You begin to feel the space and the beauty of
it, and the bliss of it, and then your furniture is removed by and by. So from
ordinary thinking it is good to become contemplative – that is the gradual
method. From contemplation it is good to move to concentration – that is the
gradual method. And from concentration it is good to take a jump into
meditation. Then you are moving slowly, feeling the ground at every step. And
when you are really rooted in one step, only then do you begin to go for the
next one. It is not a jump, it is a gradual growth. So these four things –
ordinary thinking, contemplation, concentration, meditation – are four steps.